Sunday, 29 October 2017

We are pleased to announce our plans for Jaikoz X, the tenth major version of Jaikoz.

Improvements

Firstly there are some important improvements we want to make how Jaikoz generally works.

Slow Start Up Time

Jaikoz is slower than it could be to start up, and this is mainly because it has to read the user options, this is an encrypted Xml file. With hindsight there was no need to use an Xml file instead of a standard properties file, there is no need to encrypt it and Jaikoz does not need to read more than a few items at start up.

We are going to replace the Xml file with a properties file, this is quite a task because it affects all preferences, but in the last two versions of Jaikoz we have used a properties file for new preferences so we have made a start on this. But an improvement in start up speed will not be seen until we have converted all the preferences so that the Xml file does not need to be used.

Tabbed Spreadsheet Edit View

The idea of the spreadsheet editing was always to let you display any columns you like and in any order you like to suit you. The trouble is that Jaikoz supports nearly 200 different metadata fields and the temptation is to display all of them but this can make the application rather slow and cumbersome, in particular changing the column ordering by drag and drop is very slow.The solution is to have multiple Edit tabs, we already have this in the form of Edit and ID3 Edit tabs, we want to extend the Edit tab to have different type of Edit tab.

We want to eventually allow you to create arbitrary edit tabs with arbitrary columns but think a good starting point would be tabs that roughly mimic the detail tabs, namely an Info, MusicBrainz, Sorting, Relations, Mood, Classical and Customtab.

SongKong Feature Parity

There are some features in SongKong that should be part of Jaikoz as well, in some cases they are an improved version of a Jaikoz implementation. We want to update Jaikoz so that it has the same functionality as the improved SongKong Features.

Multiple Filenaming Masks

SongKong has improved file-naming, We will a add a list of pre created rename masks to Jaikoz, that can be edited plus new masks can be created and saved. And allow functions be saved independently so they can be used by multiple file naming masks.

Song Only Matching (Pro Only)

SongKong has Song Only Matching. By default Jaikoz groups tracks logically and only allows a match if a release can be found that the complete set of tracks can be matched to, if only some tracks can be matched then no changes are made. However often Jaikoz can identify the song just not the album, since songs are usually available on multiple albums and usually the song can be correctly identified by its acoustic fingerprint but the particular album the customer has is not in the database. Song Only Matchingupdates song fields such as SongTitle and TrackArtist without breaking up the grouping because it does not update release fields such as TrackNo and AlbumArtist

Genre White and Grey Lists

SongKong supports White and Grey Lists. We will add to Jaikoz support to only genre in a particular list with white lists, and convert genres from another value with grey lists.

Accurate Changes Html Report

SongKong create a detailed Html report that shows exactly what changes have been made during a session, a similar report would be useful in Jaikoz.

New Features

Support for Beatports (Pro Only)

The quality of the data within MusicBrainz is unsurpassed, but it does not have total coverage. It is weighted towards CD and Albums, Discogs is better for Vinyl and Singles but better for cutting edge house and Dance is Beatport, we hope to add support for BeatPort

Wider Support for Artwork

For many customers the most important metadata that Jaikoz can add is artwork, in fact for some customers that is the only artwork they want Jaikoz to add. Currently we can only artwork if we have had a Discogs or MusicBrainz match and they have a link to artwork, however there are many cases whereby the existing metadata is good enough to find cover art for other sources even if the album is not available in MusicBrainz or Discogs. We want to add artwork in these cases.

Create Custom Fields (Pro Only)

Jaikoz supports nearly 200 metadata fields, but we realize that sometimes you need to add fields that we don't support, maybe for compatibility with a legacy application or for other special circumstances. We would like to add support to allow you to create custom fields as required.

Tagger Script (Pro Only)

This is a long requested feature that would let you set the value of a field based on another field, e.g artist=albumAlbum. We plan to implement this in a similar way to file-naming masks, allowing you to save multiple tagger script snippets that be applied to selected rows as required.We are very excited about these plans and would welcome feedback on these ideas at this time. Also if there are major critical features that you think are missing for this list let us know, nothing is set in stone at this stage.

Tuesday, 17 October 2017

Today on October 17th 2017 we are pleased to announce a new release of Jaikoz.

The focus of this new release is the addition of some new metadata fields plus some fixes related to metadata editing, it can be downloaded from here

MinimServer Grouping

MinimServer is a powerful uPNP server that can be used to stream to uPNP devices, it is typically used to stream music from high end audio systems but can also be used just as successfully on a PC or Mac. It has a way to group tracks that is especially useful for classical music with the MinimServer Group field (note this is different to the more common Grouping field). We already had support for automatically updating this custom field with SongKong. We now support automatic updating with Jaikoz, and of course with Jaikoz you can manually edit the field as well.

Overall Work

Jaikoz already had support for the Work field. Typically with classical music tracks represent movements that are part of a Work. But sometimes that Work is part of a larger work, most notably Operas that have recordings linked to Scenes that are parts of Acts, that are part of the overall Opera.

Now the all encompassing work is stored as the Overall Work

Instrument

Jaikoz already adds performers and their instruments when matching the releases on MusicBrainz and Discogs. This information is stored in the Performer field in the form Person:Instrument for ID3 formats such as Mp3 and Wav, and Person (Instrument) for VorbisComment formats such as OggVorbis and Flac.

But now we add the person only to the PerformerName field and the Instrument only to the Instrument field. This means you can easily sort or index your music by the instruments used.

ISWC and IPI

In a similar way to how the ISRC field can identify a unique recording the ISWC field can identify a unique work. Artists and labels can have an IPI, this is used to identify the interested parties of an ISWC (such as the composer of the work). We have now added ISWC and IPI fields to Jaikoz that can currently be manually edited, in a future release we will automatically add the metadata from MusicBrainz.

Single Disc Track No

For Multi-Disc releases it is sometimes useful to just consider the releases as a single disc release. This is the purpose of the SingleDiscTrackNo release, Jaikoz automatically adds this data when releases are matched to MusicBrainz.This field can be used in music players instead of the TrackNo to view albums as single disc albums.

Lyricist Sort

We already have sort fields for most people, such as the composer, conductor. Now we added a sort field for the lyricist.

Other Fixes

There are also a number of fixes, mostly related to some issues with advanced editing of some fields with Jaikoz. The full list of fixes can be found here